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American Eagle to shrink after pilots reject contract

In case you missed this news from Friday, American Eagle – the long-time regional affiliate of American Airlines – appears poised to shrink after its pilots rejected a contract proposal. The contract would

American Eagle to shrink after pilots reject contract

A regional jet for American Airlines' affiliate American Eagle is seen at Chicago O'Hare International Airport on July 11, 2009.(Photo: By Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY)

In case you missed this news from Friday, American Eagle — the longtime regional affiliate of American Airlines — appears poised to shrink after its pilots rejected a contract proposal.

The contract would have put American Eagle pilots into larger regional jets on order, but it also would have frozen pay scales at American Eagle and eliminated profit-sharing, among other items, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The paper adds that pay for first officers "would have been capped at $38,000 per year after four years of service."

About 70% of the American Eagle pilots who voted on the proposed contract voted to reject it, even though American's management indicated such a vote would mean a reduction in the size of the unit in the coming years.

"The Eagle pilots made a clear choice today, and it was not an easy one," Bill Sprague, chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association's master executive council at American Eagle, told The Dallas Morning News after the voting tally came in.

"Despite threats from (American Airlines Group) management that they would seek other express carriers to conduct our flying, today's vote demonstrates that the demands for contract concessions were not acceptable. Today's vote clearly shows that pilots can, and will, vote against any agreement that is not in their best interests," Sprague adds to the Morning News.

American Eagle currently has about 2,700 pilots.

Now, it appears American will hire other regional airlines to handle the contract flying for the new mid-sized jets it has on order. When coupled with AA's plans to retire American Eagle's smaller and less-efficient planes, that will cause the unit to shrink.

The Associated Press notes that "regional airlines are a training ground for larger, so-called mainline carriers. At Eagle, pilots hope to someday move up to American Airlines, although that career path has been clogged by slow growth — or none at all — at the big airlines since 2001."

Sprague tells AP that American Eagle's pilots concluded they would be better off trying to get jobs at American, JetBlue, Spirit and other airlines that are hiring instead of accepting a long-term contract that they view as concessionary.

American will rename the American Eagle as Envoy later this year and will extend the American Eagle name to all of the flights operated by American's regional affiliates.

AP adds background, writing regional carriers "operate smaller planes that often fly on secondary routes and connect passengers to big hub airports that are served by so-called mainline airlines such as American, United and Delta. Regional airlines are complaining about a shortage of pilots. Unions say the airlines need to raise pay to attract more pilots."